is anguish, a
vision of the errand girl lying yonder at the entrance of the Duvillard
mansion, the pretty fair-haired girl whom the bomb had ripped and killed!

Dupot and Mondesir made haste to participate in Gascogne's triumph. To
tell the truth, however, the man had offered no resistance; it was like a
lamb that he had let the police lay hold of him. And since he had been in
the cafe, still roughly handled, he had simply cast a weary and mournful
glance around him.

At last he spoke, and the first words uttered by his hoarse, gasping
voice were these: "I am hungry."

He was sinking with hunger and weariness. This was the third day that he
had eaten nothing.

"Give him some bread," said Commissary Dupot to the waiter. "He can eat
it while a cab is being fetched."

A policeman went off to find a vehicle. The rain had suddenly ceased
falling, the clear ring of a bicyclist's bell was heard in the distance,
some carriages drove by, and under the pale sunrays life again came back
to the Bois.

Meantime, Salvat had fallen gluttonously upon the hunk of bread which had
been given him, and whilst he was devouring it with rapturous animal
satisfaction, he perceived the four customers seated around. He seemed
irritated by the sight of Hyacinthe and Rosemonde, whose faces expressed
the mingled anxiety and delight they felt at thus witnessing the arrest
of some bandit or other. But all at once his mournful, bloodshot eyes
wavered, for to his intense surprise he had recognised Pierre and
Guillaume. When he again looked at the latter it was with the submissive
affection of a grateful dog, and as if he were once more promising that
he would divulge nothing, whatever might happen.

At last he again spoke, as if addressing himself like a man of courage,
both to Guillaume, from whom he had averted his eyes, and to others also,
his comrades who were not there: "It was silly of me to run," said he. "I
don't know why I did so. It's best that it should be all ended. I'm
ready."

V. THE GAME OF POLITICS

ON reading the newspapers on the following morning Pierre and Guillaume
were greatly surprised at not finding in them the sensational accounts of
Salvat's arrest which they had expected. All they could discover was a
brief paragraph in a column of general news, setting forth that some
policemen on duty in the Bois de Boulogne had there arrested an
Anarchist, who was believed to have played a part in certain recent
occurrence